What can you do to help?

Eric Pickles has decided to leave the decision over IKEA in the hands of Greenwich council. Where does this leave us?

There are only 3 options left:

1. The Council wakes up and realises that IKEA have severely under-represented the traffic and environmental impact of the proposed store and delays planning consent while it obtains independent advice and speaks to other councils with IKEA stores to find out what impact they have had.2. IKEA plays fair by Greenwich and adopts its business model to this congested Zone 2 in order to achieve the public transport, minimum traffic model which it has promised Greenwich. IKEA has already opened small 'traffic free' stores in Hamburg and Paris. 3. Judicial Review.

WE NEED YOUR HELP! Please email your councillors and IKEA to get them to play fair by Greenwich. - write to IKEA telling them your concerns - all local residents associations have already done so, but the more letters the better. - IKEA claim that they will REDUCE traffic - what will they do if this does not come true? - Will IKEA modify their ugly blue and yellow box to fit in with the Peninsula? - Please keep emailing your councillors. It is their job to safeguard the community and to minimise the impact on local residents. - Councillors should be pressuring their planning offers to ensure that they demand enforceable contractual commitments from IKEA and proper money to compensate the community. The council is selling Greenwich short - £750,000 towards public transport measures, when IKEA is giving £5 million to Reading.

Please offer your help in whatever form you can. This is now at a crucial stage. Greenwich Council's planners are close to finalising the Section 106 Agreement in which IKEA is offering far less than it has offered other Councils. In Reading, IKEA has offered £5 million towards road improvements. In Greenwich it has offered £750,000 towards a Travel Plan which includes soft measures for encouraging public transport use such as a live information board with bus times, but no financial penalties if IKEA brings the traffic chaos we all expect. In Southampton, IKEA has agreed to penalties. Come on, play fair!

Once they have obtained final planning consent, common tricks pulled by IKEA include:1. Initial planning consent for a 10am opening, leading Councils to believe there will be no impact on the morning rush hour, followed by a later application to open at 9am for that 95p bargain breakfast.2. Agreeing to limitiations on size and parking and then applying to extend it. We already know that Greenwich offers around a third of the parking spaces of other London IKEA stores. In Wembley, IKEA solved this problem by later obtaining consent for a huge multi-storey car park.3. Applying for consent for enormous illuminated hordings, for maximum visibility from the nearest dual carriageway.

You can also navigate the council's website for a ward map if you are unsure which ward you are in.

Any email, long or short will work. Ask for a meeting. Ask them what they are doing to influence Section 106 Agreement negotiations to make sure that IKEA can be held to the promises it has made to the Council. Ask them to speak to other councils with IKEA stores to find out what their experience of IKEA is. Ask them to commission an independent review of IKEA's wildly ambitious traffic estimates.

2. Write to the CEO of IKEA, Peter Agnefall, asking him to play fair by Greenwich. It cannot be good for the image of a store which tries to sell itself on sustainability to cause traffic gridlock in Zone 2, effectively cutting off Peninsula, site of one of the most important residential regeneration areas in London and bringing 100,000s more cars right through Greenwich Town Centre and over Blackheath Common, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Perhaps Mr Agnefall is not aware of what his people on the ground in London are up to. Here is Mr Agnefall's email address: peter.agnefjall@ikea.com

3. Tell us if you can offer your help. We are a small group of local residents. Make no mistake - IKEA will arrive and build a 33,000 sq.m. store (5,000 sq.m. bigger than Tottenham!), unless everyone who has concerns makes their voice heard. We need many more people to be making a noise. There is strength in numbers and we need you.

4. If you are a lawyer, or a charity interested in supporting a judicial review application, please let us know. Time is short for this.